Is there a right and irrefutable answer to this question? Actually, there is one!
After more than eleven years working in language education and being myself an insatiable foreign language student, I’ve heard this question (Should you learn a language with a native or non-native teacher?) hundreds or maybe even thousands of times.
Believe it: it’s dead easy to find the answer to this question! How?
Let me give you some help to find out to find out!
Here you have 6) characteristics of teaching style for native and non-native teachers
Native |
Non Native |
| Accurate phonetics with a variety of accents | Understandable phonetics with pronunciation training |
| Focused on oral practice | Focussed on grammar practice |
| Has a higher cultural focus and often relates the language to culture, traditions, current society and affairs | Has more empathy and can understand your difficulties well since he/she had to learn the language too |
| Only uses the target language in language classes | Can use translation during your language classes |
| Will give more freedom on the issues to be discussed during speaking practice in order to mix grammar concepts in a same discussion | Will give guidelines and select issues to be discussed during lessons to focus on a limited number of grammar concepts. |
| Would rather make you learn grammar thanks the lyrics of a current trendy song in his country | Would rather make you practice the grammar rules with exercises especially picked-up for this purpose |
So, do you know now the final answer to whether to learn with a native or non-native language teacher?
You got it: the answer is in you because there is not one answer, each of us have different answers according to our criteria, to how we think we learn the best, to the motivations that push us to learn a language.
Frederic Parrilla, Deputy Director
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